Surgical instruments are becoming more widely used in surgical procedures. This is especially true with the advent of endoscopic or least invasive surgery. Many of these instruments are quite bulky in nature and have some weight to them. Because of this bulk and weight, the instruments are more difficult to package in a sterile manner than lightweight small needles, sutures and similar devices. One accepted method used for packaging these bulky, relatively heavy instruments is in thermoformed plastic blister packages. Often, these packages comprise a thermoformed plastic tray with a paper or film cover. Such thermoformed packages are bulky and difficult to dispose of causing considerable environmental concern. In packaging surgical products, it is often desirable to use heat sealed packages. Generally these packages comprise two layers of either film, paper, non-woven fabric or combinations of the same. The layers are heat-sealed together about their peripheries with any of the standard thermoplastic heat-sealable resins with the sterile item disposed between the layers. These heat sealable packages have become quite accepted because they're inexpensive and easy to open within the sterile environment. Furthermore, these type packages cause less environmental concern than the thermoformed plastic trays.
One of the problems that arises when packaging the bulky and relatively heavy sterile surgical instruments in a heat sealable and pealable package is that often during transportation of the instrument package or other handling of the instrument package prior to use, the instrument will move within the package and disrupt the heat seal and hence compromise the sterility of the instrument.
It is an object of the present invention to overcome these problems. It is an object of the present invention to stabilize a relatively bulky and heavy sterile instrument within a package. It is a further object of the present invention to assist in insuring that in a heat sealed package the heat seal is not compromised during the transportation or storage of the instrument package prior to use of the instrument. A still further object of the present invention is to provide a package that causes a minimum of environmental concern.